Sunday, July 12, 2020

213, THE GREAT AIR ROBBERY. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Unidentified actors in The Great Air Robbery.
THE GREAT AIR ROBBERY [Comedy/Crime/Politics/Science-Fiction] A/D/DS: San Francisco Mime Troupe; M/LY: Phil Marsh; P: Chelsea Theatre Center of Brooklyn; T: Westside Theatre (OB); 11/24/74-12/23/74 (14)

This piece was the collective creation of the leftwing, politically-oriented San Francisco Mime Troupe, in those days one of the best-known avant-garde companies in the U.S.A., famous for its street performances. It was performed in repertory with Brecht’s The Mother during a period of residence at the Chelsea.

The Great Air Robbery, devised for street theatre presentation, was a simplistic, sloganeering, science-fiction parody, set in the near future where prices are crazily inflated, the air is polluted beyond breathability, and the Martians are blamed for it all. A Humphrey Bogart-like black private eye, dressed in 30s clothes, is employed to find out who is spying on a woman scientist who has come up with a pollution-removal device.

Clive Barnes found the work unexciting, juvenile, and unfunny, but praised the “assurance” of the cast, the ingenuity of their street theatre set, and the pleasantness of their pop music. He thought their revolutionary political aims of little merit, however, in the creation of vital theatre.










                                                                                                                                            TJE